Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1887-03-21
The Boss of BarangarOO.
.sIt can't be-no, it couldn't be
for him to die -

He was all alone in the hut. He
sat on a packing case staring into the
head on his hands, talking to himself,
as solitary men will. There was
gloomy, helpless perpleXity in his
look, as he thrust the burning brands
together with the toe of his boot, and
muttered over and over again-''Boss
a-dyin'-no, no -
A stray stock rider had passed by
that afternoon, on his way to a dis
tant station, and brought the news
from Barangaroo.
1t was Murdoch of Barangaroo-
Lennox Murdoch, who lay dying
slowly dying in torture-helplesslv
crushed and mangled by falling
tree, as he was overseeing some tim
Der cutting in the bush. The man
whose gay fearlessness was the won
der of the colony-who had ridden
unharmed time after time through
the very jaws of death reckless,
wayward, fantastic soul, to whom
mortal danger was familiar friend
whom every one loved and laughed
at-so full of life, and joy in life.
Why, the very thought of his dying
was impossible, and ineongruous-at
least it seemed as if the only fitting
close to such a career would be a
swift, sudden stroke-tO be snatched
away in moment, with the laughing
light still in his eyes, and the last
snatch of a song still lingering on his
lips. 1t seemed unnatural, horrible,
for LennoX Murdoch, of all men, to
be lying on his back in the darkened
room, with closed eyes, and drawn,
white lips. SO thought his overseer,
who had carried him upstairs in his
arms, and laid him tenderly down on
the bed he would never leave again
feeling all the time, grave, quiet
Scotsman as he was, as if his own
heart would break. So thought
though they could not perhaps have
put it into words-the men who hung
gloomily about the doors, or listlesslv
went through with their work-silent-
ly, or speaking in hushed voices to
each other. There might have been
better men, there certainly were many
far more judicious and with better
regulated minds, whereas the censo-
rious might have said that Lennox
Murdoch's mind was not regulated
at all but there was not a shepherd,
or hut keeper. or hand of any sort on
the station that would not have given
ANYTHING to "have Murdoch round
again in a good tearin' temper" as
as one of them said. No, they would
never hear his wrathful harrangues
or his reckless ''chaff' again.
And this man who now sat over
the fire, this great, black-bearded,
half-savage, heather Englishman, had
heard the news with stolid apathy,
and hardly said word. Perhaps the
idea took a long time to reach that
slow-moving brain of his. After the
stranger had gone he slung the billy
and set the tea to boil, and got all
things ready as usual for his mates
when they should return and then
settled down to his brooding watch
over the fire, muttering broken words
to himself.
He was not man of many ideas
that was apparent at the first glance.
Probably he had not started in life
with an excessive amount, and his
| experience as an ordinary seaman on
board various small merchant YES
sells, and later as a convict in sgd
ney, had not tended to increase or ell
evate his stock. But, once he had
acquired a notion of any sort, he
clung to it, or it to him, with the te-
nacity of the limpet on the rock.
| do not think he remembered him
self what offence he had been trans
ported for. Perhaps many years of
solitary bush life had affected his
memory, and its dull uniformity dead
ened the past into one blurred haze.
Like that of the savage, his mind did
not look after nor very far before !;
yet utterly inactive it was not. He
| did think and reason in his slow,
dogged fashion. He was not cum
ming, nor naturally cruel, though his
ship and prison life had generated in
him a dull, brooding ferocity that
sometimes came to light in outbreaks
of fury.
And the highest idea his mind was
capable of conceiving was embodied
in the words, Murdoch of Baranga-
roo.
This is how it came.
He had gradually became possessed
of vague belief that it was the des-
tinv and normal condition of man to
be sworn at, cuffed, kicked, and gen
orally considered a nuisance, unless
it were his happy lot to be able to
| swear at others in his turn, and ac-
quiesced therein in his dull, passive
way. And so, when his time was
out, and he set forth ON his aimless
wanderings, he drifted out to Baran-
garoo Station, with convict written
on every line of his slouching figure
and sullen face. And it came to pass.
one hot December morning, that he
Il L.